Endurance Balloonist Goes Missing

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]AP: Coast Guard seeking missing balloonist from Japan
The Coast Guard is searching stormy seas for a Japanese hot-air balloonist missing on a trip from Japan to Oregon. The balloonist, Michio Kanda, a world-record holder, vanished Thursday over the North Pacific about 435 miles south of Adak Island in Alaska's Aleutians chain. Two C-130 aircraft were unable to detect the missing balloon on radar, and a Coast Guard cutter has joined the search. Kanda's assistant, Chika Edgar, said Kanda was flying from Tochigi, Japan, to Portland, trying to break distance and duration records. Kanda, who has 30 years of ballooning experience, planned to challenge the current long-distance world record of 4,767 miles. Kanda was said to be well-equipped for the current trip, which was estimated to be almost 5,600 miles long and take about 60 hours. The black and red balloon is about 15 stories tall and nearly 150 feet wide.

[Bucky]

The hot air balloon that disappeared south of Alaska this week, with which adventurer Michio Kanda hoped to fly from Japan to Oregon, followed a course pioneered in World War II by unmanned - and more lethal - Japanese balloons.

In the last two years of the war, Japan launched thousands of "fire balloons," hydrogen-filled craft made from paper, glue and aluminum, that rode the jet stream across the Pacific with payloads of incendiary and antipersonnel bombs. The Japanese war ministry hoped the random descent of these stealth weapons over populated areas would create panic among American civilians.Floating at 30,000 feet, they were beyond the range of most U.S. fighter planes. They made the 5,000-mile trip in about three days and went as far as Mexico, Michigan and Iowa.

In Oregon, a woman and five children were killed when they happened upon one at a picnic, the only American deaths caused by the devices.

Of more than 9,000 balloons launched, various sources speculate that 1,000 or more made the trip with their payloads intact. Fewer than 300 have ever been found.

http://www.adn.com/189/story/301898.html

[kurohinge1]

. . . The black and red balloon is about 15 stories tall and nearly 150 feet wide . . .

I suspect that those are no longer its dimensions.

[Mulboyne]

AP: Search Ends for Japanese Balloonist

The Coast Guard is ending its search in the North Pacific for a Japanese hot-air balloonist missing since January 31. Michio Kanda was trying to fly from Japan to Oregon. An airplane searching Thursday about 400 miles south of Umnak Island in the Aleutians was unable to find the 58-year-old balloonist or debris. Air searchers Monday marked the location of partially submerged white and blue cylinder-shaped objects and a tan object. The debris was not positively identified as Kanda's wreckage. Kanda reportedly carried a survival pod, cold-weather survival gear and food and water. The Coast Guard says a manually activated emergency locator beacon was never detected.